Donor medals are displayed at the Gift Donor Service held at Life Fellowship Church on Nov. 1. Families of organ, eye and tissue donors received a medal for the gift that their loved one gave unselfishly to others.

“I’m sitting here with the reality of dying,” Buster Foster said. “If you’re a Christian, the first thing you’re going to do is go to God. I started to wonder if this was it.”

Friday marked the first day of National Donor Sabbath, which people are celebrating across the country. Organized by Donate Life America, National Donor Sabbath has been celebrated every year since its inception in 1997.

During this annual three-day weekend, donation and transplant organizations work closely with faith leaders and communities to bring awareness of the importance of organ donation to congregations worldwide.

Because of faith and a liver transplant, 63-year-old Foster, owner of Buzula Furniture, knows that God is responsible for his second chance at life.

In 2004, he was diagnosed with stage 3 hepatitis C and cirrhosis.

“I was at the top of my game — at the time, I owned Warehouse Solutions on South Washington and by far, we were the biggest store from Dallas to Denver,” he said. “We were pumping furniture out ... life couldn’t have been any better and then boom, I get this information.”

The furniture store owner thought he had a strong faith foundation, but said he found himself trying to serve both God and money. Foster went through an entire year of treatments, only to find out they were ineffective.

“I had to go back through the treatments again, and I knew how sick I got the last time,” Foster said. “We liquidated Warehouse Solutions in August 2006, and I started treatments in September. I lasted 90 days.”

Too sick to withstand the treatments, doctors pulled him off, leaving the next and only option of saving his life an organ transplant.

In December 2007, Foster was placed on life support. He received more than 50 units of blood over 30 days while in intensive care at Baylor Medical Center at Dallas.

“In March 2007, I had a stroke,” he said. “I was in and out of the hospital, having seizures, my liver was failing, and then they discovered a tumor on each lobe of my liver, which meant they were inoperable.”

Doctors on two different occasions called his family and said Foster wouldn’t make it.

“My wife said, well, you don’t know my Lord yet,” he said.

He received a liver match in January 2008, after spending most of his time in and out of hospitals for three years, and within 24 hours began to see improvements in his health, he said.

Every day, more than 75 people across the nation receive the gift of life through donations and transplantations, according to Donate Life Texas.

“By registering to be an organ, eye and tissue donor, you can provide hope to the more than 120,000 men, women and children across the United States currently awaiting organ transplants and the hundreds of thousands more in need of cornea and tissue transplants,” said Laura Frnka-Davis, director of communications of LifeGift. “We find often people resist registering by what their church has told them.”

The Rev. Errol Hainer, pastor of Life Fellowship Church, hosts the Gift Donor Service every year to celebrate life and the extension of life.

“I’ve had church members who were transplant recipients,” he said. “I’ve prayed with over 100 people who have had a transplant. I’ve prayed for people who don’t even live in Amarillo and even led people to the Lord.”

Frnka-Davis said she’s heard stories from both sides on how religion played a role in transplant recipient’s lives.

“For the recipient, it’s having that faith that someone will give them the gift of life,” she said. “And for the donor family, they often say God had a plan. They both rely on religion to get through the darkness.”

Foster said though he was miserable during his darkest times, his journey was a humbling life lesson learned.

“I had failed in life in my faith and I wasn’t going to do it again,” he said. “I’ve given my entire life, business and everything to the Lord and said ‘your will be done,’ and I couldn’t have been more happier.”